


you like her better (wish i were heather)

by singingaboutwishing



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Angst, F/M, I'm pretty sure anyway, Insecurity, Pining, Slight Canon Divergence, What else is new with me, in that this december when josh and amy are together and sam is still in dc doesn't actually exist, sorry that was awful, there must be some clovers in the atmosphere because it's cold outside
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-12 10:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,858
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29134296
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/singingaboutwishing/pseuds/singingaboutwishing
Summary: Donna and Amy are more alike than they realize.songfic for conan gray’s “heather”.
Relationships: Amy Gardner/Josh Lyman, Josh Lyman/Donna Moss
Comments: 24
Kudos: 39





	1. Amy

_but i watch your eyes as she walks by_   
_what a sight for sore eyes / brighter than a blue sky_

To be perfectly clear, Amy knows Josh wants her. He wouldn't be sleeping with her if he didn't. However, it has become increasingly apparent that it's not _just_ Amy. 

“Are you dating your assistant?” she had asked the first time he came to her office. She was just trying to throw him off a little with the rumors she’d heard, but, God, now she understands where they came from. Amy is now the one he’s actually seeing, and she still only feels second best when Donna’s around.

She feels like such a _fraud_ when she gets insecure about this. Maybe middle school Amy would have been insecure, but Yale law school graduate, women's rights lobbyist, emotionally mature adult Amy should not be feeling like this. She’s her own damn person who doesn't need to compare herself to others. She’s not about to set feminism back to the damn stone age just because some dope she went to law school with _clearly_ has some unresolved feelings for his assistant. 

Of course, it doesn’t help that the dope in question has a dumb cute smile and eyes that burn in the best way when they look her up and down and a whisper that makes her knees go a little weak when it carries her name, but that shouldn't matter. 

And the thing is, she doesn’t really have a right to be mad about this because they’re not even technically dating! They are not exclusive. They’re this nebulous cloud of twisted sheets and silent propositions and complicated dynamics. If Josh wants to do a truly terrible job at shoving down his feelings for Donna, that’s his thing. Amy is having fun, mostly, and she isn’t about to let Donna ruin it.

She can't even rationalize these feelings by hating Donna. For one, she barely knows the woman, so it's hard to develop any strong feelings unrelated to Josh. What little Amy does know about her makes her impossible to hate. She's pretty damn good at her job, and she seems... thoughtful and attentive and just _nice_. Any slim chance she had of hating Donna was reduced to none after the First Lady's birthday party. Donna had stood up to Abigail Bartlet. She was a little drunk (as they all were), but that didn't make it any less valid. Donna Moss is a good person, and Amy just wishes that she would go be a good person somewhere far away from Washington, D.C. 

It’s the classic (terrible) trope: the brunette or the blonde? The new girl or the one who was right there the whole time? 

Amy knows in her heart which one he’d pick if it came to that, even if Josh himself doesn’t know it yet.

On Tuesday, Amy stops into Josh's office to throw Mrs. Bartlet's weight behind a new bill. She sits across from him, explaining what she needs when Donna breezes into the room and drops a file on Josh's desk. "Here's that file. And you can have your coat back now." 

Amy watches as Donna slips off Josh's long winter coat, hanging it back on the coat tree. It's such a small action, but Amy feels her stomach twist. Borrowing Josh's jacket seems like such a _girlfriend_ thing.

"You done taking things that don't belong to you, Donna?" Josh asks teasingly, barely looking up from his computer.

Donna rolls her eyes, but she smirks. "I'm done running across the street for you today, if that's what you're asking. Hey, Amy."

It's almost hard to speak, but Amy finds her voice. "Hey, Donna."

Donna leaves the office, and the moment is gone, but Amy is still shaken.

It haunts her on her drive home that night. It was literally nothing, but it's bothering her. Donna looked so at ease wrapped up in Josh's coat.

Really, it's not an issue. Logically, it adds up that Donna would borrow his coat. The White House doesn't even pay Amy very well, so she can imagine that Donna might not be able to afford a really good winter coat. Josh is the one who asked her to run across the street, so it only seems fair that she gets to borrow his coat, which is probably much warmer than Donna's. It makes sense.

Still, it seems so casual, so intimate that it makes Amy's chest hurt.

It's stupid.

When she gets home, she covers a piece of paper with every single thing she's feeling in the neatest handwriting she can muster. She writes slowly, deliberately, and the pain in her chest only grows stronger as she nears the bottom.

She reads it over once and notices that _FUCK JOSH LYMAN AND FUCK DONNA MOSS_ is written four separate times. Her penmanship still sucks, but it doesn't really matter. What she has will do just fine.

She strikes a match and lights the paper on fire, dropping it into her kitchen sink and watching the flames devour it.

Jealousy over a coat has no place in Amy's life, so she simply burns it to the ground and rinses the ashes away.

It doesn't work.

Like a flock of stupid phoenixes, the jealousy, the bitterness, the insecurity rise from the ashes. They fly home, they return to nest inside Amy's heart, and now she's right back at square one.

_she's got you mesmerized while i die_


	2. Donna

_why would you ever kiss me? / i'm not even half as pretty_

There’s a moment when Amy passes by and sticks her head into Josh’s office, makes a quip, and leaves before he can respond, and the look on Josh’s face feels like it’s actually stabbing Donna in the heart. Dramatic, perhaps, but accurate. He looks… dazed, and in awe, and all the things that never seem to show when he looks at Donna. 

She's not dating Josh. She knows that. She is his assistant and his friend, and they are not dating. There is no reason for him to look at Donna like he looks at Amy.

That doesn't stop her from wanting him to look at her like that, though. 

And damn if Josh doesn't have a type: short, brunette, highly respected within their fields. Amy, Joey, and Mandy are all of those things. Donna is none of those things. 

Donna knows that she’s an attractive enough woman. She’s desirable. She’s smart. And she feels like dirt next to Amy Gardner. It’s stupid, really. She needs to stop comparing herself to other women. She doesn’t do it with CJ and Margaret, so why should she compare herself to Amy?

 _Because_ , the nasty little voice in her brain whispers, _there’s a reason he didn't pick you and it’s not just because you’re his subordinate._

And every morning, Donna puts on mascara ( _she is Donna Moss_ ), blush ( _she is the assistant to Josh Lyman_ ), lipstick ( _she is not bothered by Amy Gardner_ ), and hopes that if she puts on this mask enough, if she looks in the mirror and sees herself with it on, maybe it will become her real face. 

It's harder at the end of the day. The mascara, the blush, the lipstick come off on the cotton pad, and now when she looks in the mirror, she sees _Donna Moss, in love with Josh Lyman, very, very bothered by Amy Gardner_.

Amy is gorgeous. She's smart, too, and driven, and snarky. She really is everything Donna aspires to be in life, though Donna would like to be a little kinder. Workplace etiquette aside, it's not like she doesn't understand why Josh is choosing Amy. 

But Donna's fine. Really, she is. Her...self worth, or whatever, isn't defined by how much she means to Josh. Amy isn't the enemy. She's just who Josh wants to be with, and that's fine.  
  
  
  


The president, as it turns out, is a dirty liar.

Not really, but it had been passed down the chain that it "wasn't too terribly cold outside," and that certainly wasn't the case. Unfortunately, that meant most of the employees of the East and West Wings went outside to watch the tree lighting and preceding speech without real coats in thirty-five degree weather.

Donna watches Josh (who apparently had thought for more than one second about what they were told) give Amy his coat and, God, it doesn’t mean anything at all that he lets Donna take his coat sometimes. He's just being nice. It’s a coat. It’s a piece of fabric with zero significance. He chooses Amy. Donna’s not an option. There is no reason for her to stress about this. 

Donna really is cold now, so much colder than she was before. She doesn’t even realize she’s shivering until Sam gently puts a hand on her shoulder and she almost jumps out of her skin. 

“Donna? You’re shaking.” He looks concerned, but Donna barely even registers it as she looks over his shoulder at Josh and Amy, still standing together at a distance just wide enough to be professional. 

She forces herself to tear her eyes away and look at Sam (Sam had at least brought a scarf. Lucky him). “I’m fine,” she says, forcing out a little half-laugh, “It was silly of me to come out without a real coat and think I wouldn’t be a little cold.”

He just keeps looking at her and Donna _knows_ he knows what she really means.

“It’s nothing, Sam,” she says quietly. “It’s less than nothing.”

“It’s not nothing, but it doesn’t need to be nothing. The cold tends to seep in when we least expect it. We can’t beat ourselves up for not being prepared all the time, especially when the weather patterns have been so scattered lately.” He takes off his scarf and drapes it over her. “If it gets cold again, you can always come hole up in my office. If you don’t feel like talking, I have a bottle of rum somewhere that’s very warming.” 

Donna lets out a laugh, even though nothing is funny. The scarf and his kind, discreet gesture warm her just enough to stop the shaking. Still, she’s nearly swallowed whole by the urge to just give in and let Sam hold her while she cries at the absurdity of the situation: Josh and Amy, Donna's overreaction to a coat that’s not even hers, the silly cold weather metaphor she tossed out that Sam caught and ran with so easily.

She rolls her shoulders back a little, tilting her chin up just enough to be normal. She wills her emotions back into the Pandora's box they came from. 

"Thank you." She gives him a little half smile, and the two of them turn back to the president and watch as the tree lights up. 

It doesn't make Donna feel anything at all.

Her coat is never quite warm enough after that, but she can't bring herself to borrow Josh's anymore.

All that's left is the cold seeping in.

_you gave her your sweater / it's just polyester_

_but you like her better_

_wish i were heather_

**Author's Note:**

> find me on tumblr @stars-on-the-cuffs-of-her-jeans. all my love to you.


End file.
